


Sweetest of dreams

by LannisterQueen



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: captivity mention, purely platonic sister love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LannisterQueen/pseuds/LannisterQueen





	Sweetest of dreams

      Sometimes (too few and far in between, too brief) she’s allowed the escape sleep provides. Sleep itself does not come easy, even when they do let her rest; her captors have only as much concern about her health as needed for her to remain alive, a broodmother to the Horde's twisted purposes. When sleep does comes, it is often uneasy and filled with nightmares that did not scare her any more than the reality she would always wake up to, but that prevents her from truly resting. Other times, it will be sleep borne of exhaustion, and her mind and body and spirit will all be too tired to wander anywhere. Then her sleep is deep, if short, and there is nothing but this blackness so akin to what she imagines death would be like (not _unwelcome_ ; truth be told, Alexstrasza has longed to not wake up again for many months, knowing that only death would bring her freedom). 

      Few are the times she is blessed with **dreams** ; even fewer when they are so sweet as this. Enveloped in sounds as ancient as they were welcome, there is a semblance of comfort, as if the soft humming of a lullaby of their youth, forgotten in time but now remembered in her sister’s sweet voice would be enough to give her protection and make her untouchable again ( _it won’t_ , some part of her warns, _and when you wake everything will be as it was, and you will be chained still, and there will be nothing to protect you and yours from this seemingly endless torture_ ; but Alexstrasza quietens such thoughts, forces them into silence, for if she’s not allowed some happiness in dreams, then she is already dead in every way but one).

_Ysera_. Her sister wears the form of a Night Elf as she stands in front of her, gentlest of touches as her hand (so small in front of the red leviathan's snout) caresses Alexstrasza's scales. It is a presence as suave and welcome as spring itself, a gentle breeze that sweeps away the Lifebinder’s pains and calms her heart, if only for those brief moments. Thinking of her sister is enough to make her throat tighten and eyes tear up in her dream self, just as they would have in her real body. That her sister is the Mother of Dreams has less to do with immediate recognition that fills her as soon as her mind drifts to this otherworldly realm, and she feels deep sorrow and gratitude in equal measures; no, she knows it is Ysera because none other would have the power to soothe her so, to ease her pains and rest her mind in similar way.

      The Emerald Queen is only there in dream, she knows from the beginning, and it is already more than she could have hoped for. There was no resent, no anger or hatred or blame; Alexstrasza did not blame her for not trying to break her free, did not blame any of the others either. Best they stay away, do not try to rescue her at all, lest they too are imprisoned and share of her fate (how could she ask them to risk themselves so?). The Demon Soul is too powerful, much too dangerous. Would that she could suffer its horrors alone if it would spare others of her kind, red flight or not, from its twisted magic. The Lifebinder suffers the cruelty the younger races are capable of in pursuit of power, and she wouldn’t wish it upon none. 

      This would be her grave, likely, as it had been to so many of her children, as it would be to most of her flight. If death came soon, she would be most grateful. Good enough that somewhere, her sister is safe; Ysera has not forgotten her, and Alexstrasza wishes only to be able to tell the younger how she loves her so, how she thanks her endlessly for blessing her with the sweetest of dreams amidst a world of torment.

 


End file.
